Yeah, they’re bowing again. What is it with these guys? Little Timmy and Barack have something in common with Erick; they all spent their formative years in foreign lands. But how come Timmy and Barack always have to bow to everybody? I’m sure Erick would never do so unless it was Jesus Christ himself (or maybe the Queen of England, YMMV).

Yeah, I know, it’s the economy, stupid. But my God I can’t wait for them to get out of power. They’re overturning their own generals again, too!

As Western diplomats meet this week in Baghdad to try to coax Iran’s leaders to disclose its full nuclear program, Gen. James Mattis will be keeping an eye on the Persian military.

Mattis wanted to send a third aircraft-carrier group to the Persian Gulf earlier this year, The Daily Beast has exclusively learned, in what would have been a massive show of force at a time when Iranian military commanders were publicly threateningto sink American ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The four-star Marine Corps general and CentCom commander believed the display could have deterred Iran from further escalating tensions, according to U.S. military officials familiar with his thinking.

But the president wanted to focus military resources on new priorities like China, and Mattis was told a third carrier group was not available to be deployed to the Gulf.

The carrier-group rebuff in January was one of several for the commander responsible for East Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Working for the Obama administration, Mattis has often found himself the odd man out—particularly when it comes to Iran

Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch. –R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans executive director

President Obama, if your change on this issue hadn’t been so blatantly obviously timed to be of no help to North Carolina but just in time to save you from losing at least the 20% of your bundlers who are openly LGBT, then I might actually consider rewarding you with my vote. However, as long as you stand against life on the issue of abortion, against sensible tax policy that could actually bring some employment back to this country, and against sound budgetary and debt policy, I’m still going to have to go with the “severely conservative” candidate.

This diary goes out not just to my fellow LGBT conservatives, but also to every single conservative who has someone in their life whom they know and love and who is gay. (That should cover everybody). I know that folks like Savage and the way the Obama Administration has been treating working folks has us all in a very angry finger-flipping mood. But if we can talk in a rational way about the issue of abortion, where the lives of innocent children are on the line and lost in the thousands every day, many of whom would be viable if delivered instead of aborted, how much more, then, can we talk respectfully and rationally about the pros and cons of civil–not church force-feeding–recognition of same-sex relationships and/or marriages.

P.S.: To my fellow LGBT conservatives–don’t even THINK about voting for Obama for this. Obama did himself a favor today, not us. Our train has already left the station and is en route to the Supreme Court in one year. Give him his due, but remember how much his positions hurt us in nearly every other way before you get too mushy.

Grand juries are unpredictable and sometimes even uncontrollable. It wouldn’t do to risk a politically incorrect no-bill.

I don’t hold out much hope for the judicial review for probable cause, but if ever there were a case that would call for a finding of insufficient evidence for probable cause, this is it.

Innocent Little Trayvon(TM) (as you would be led to believe by the media’s choice of ancient elementary school pictures of the Darling Little Angel [insert vomit here]) decided to step up to The True Victim, George Zimmerman, and tell him that today was his day to die. Then he proceeded to beat the hell out of him by smashing his head against the sidewalk to the point of breaking bones. If I had been similarly situated, experiencing great bodily harm with more (like, oh, say…DEATH) imminently to come, I would have emptied every last round of my glock right into that gangster wannabe’s FACE and smiled that I LIVED and HE DIED. And that would be one less theiving hoodrat terrorizing us law-abiding citizens, with a lot less cost to taxpayers having to put him on trial and pay for his 3 hots and a cot.

There is NO WAY IN HELL the state of Florida will be able to scrape together 12 people to find unanimously that Zimmerman wasn’t lawfully defending himself, even if they were to try to stack the jury pool with as many women and people of color as they can find. I have faith in the jury system; it is some comfort to know that as much as the politically correct fussbudgets led by Ms. Corey want to avoid letting a grand jury hear the evidence, they can’t get around the trial jury requirement.

Zimmerman’s defense lawyer is going to eat the prosecution for lunch, and I hope everyone joins me in making a donation as they are able to his legal defense fund.

I hope this prosecution goes down in flames, what with its chilling effect on the right of law-abiding citizens to stand their ground and defend their lives and the lives of their family members. This prosecution is a travesty, and the speed of the not guilty verdict will be the proof.

When the firefighter comes to rescue your kids from the burning building, do you ask him if he ever had a divorce first or do you point him to their room?

Folks, our country is burning down, and Mitt intends to use a garden hose for a 5-alarm fire. As if that weren’t bad enough, he was the one whispering in the ear of our Arsonist-in-Chief about what a great idea the individual mandate would be at the federal level (USA Today, 2009 op-ed). Rick understands the urgency, but when he was in the Senate and our country needed conservative leadership, all he could muster was Republican followership (“team player” vomit-inducing comment in the last debate).

Only one candidate is talking about getting Congress off their useless hinders as soon as they are sworn in on January 3 to pass the repeal of Obamacare (use reconciliation in the Senate, or they can “deem and pass” it for all I care, whatever works) so that he can sign it on the afternoon of January 20, and that candidate is the only one with experience as a conservative leader–Newt Gingrich.

I don’t want anyone recommending this diary unless you’re mad as hell, and you have first made at least 20 calls by clicking on the “Make the Call” link at newt.org. A donation is optional.

Here is the part where I trash everybody and prioritize some people over others in a way that will be very unpopular with some of my fellow conservatives, but hopefully you will read this without the sunglasses of your prejudice and find some perspective:

• I don’t want a philandering former Establishment guy with questionable ethics as my president, but he’s a DAMN SIGHT BETTER THAN
• the guy who equates the private lives of consenting adults with the violent felony of pedophilia and never met an earmark or spending program he couldn’t go along with–but even he’s a DAMN SIGHT BETTER THAN
• the guy who would forfeit our interests abroad, leaving an overwhelming vacuum of power that our enemies would be only too glad to fill–but yes, even he’s a DAMN SIGHT BETTER THAN
• Willard Mitt Romney

Maybe Operation Chaos (vote for whoever is 2nd in delegate total) is a good thing–our only chance at a Jeb Bush or a Paul Ryan or a Jim DeMint at the convention.

Contrary to what Mr. Create-an-Aura-of-Inevitability would like you to believe, now is NOT the time to be going after Obama. The time now is to be trying our candidates by fire. Well, we’ve been doing that, and they have so far come up sorely lacking. There is still time to see if one of our candidates not named Romney can pull it out by March 6, 2012 (trust me, that’s the deadline, not before, and not after). If not, that is what a convention is for, the ultimate backstop.

DON’T WORRY, we will emerge from the convention united around someone not named Romney, and everyone will get along again, and we will defeat Obama with this individual. As Rush Limbaugh likes to say, “do not doubt me!”

In 27 days…pick your poison.

You’ve followed the race for months now. You know your stuff. You know the polls. You know who has the momentum. You know who doesn’t. Make a comment saying who you think will finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. It’s time to take off our partisan hats and put on our neutral political analyst non-wishful-thinking caps. Let’s show the world how tuned in we are and how accurate we can be. I’ll start us off:

1st – Ron Paul

2nd – Rick Santorum

3rd – Mitt Romney

If you want to throw in what you’d ideally like to see the order be, you can add that to your comment. Just make sure you put your actual prediction first. Have fun and we’ll see ya back here Tuesday night!